On Doing Business Globally. A/k/a "What About Paris?" Law. Trade. Politics. Courts. New Ideas. Old Verities. Heroes. The World.

February 01, 2013

The Economist: Two must-read pieces on the curable madness of U.S. legal education.

From the February print edition of The Economist:

1. "America’s lawyers: guilty as charged." Excerpt: "America has more lawyers per person of its population than any of 29 countries studied (except Greece), and it spends two to three times as much on its tort system, as a percentage of GDP, as other big economies (except Italy)."

Law students have been saying for years that America’s legal education is broken. Graduates from even the best law schools are failing to find jobs. And those that do often find themselves stuck. The average student takes out more than $100,000 for law school, which is why many feel they cannot afford to leave the profession; governments and NGOs cannot pay them enough.